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Marriott fined $123M for GDPR data breach

The EU’s GDPR applies anywhere in the world, as long as data belonging to EU residents is involved. Unluckily for Marriott, their massive 339-million-record 2018 data breach affected millions of people living in the U.K. As a result, the company is on the hook for a $123 million fine.

According to The Next Web:

“Seven million of the affected users were UK residents, and 30 million related to residents of 31 countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). The incident concerns a 2014 data breach of hotel company Starwood, which was acquired by Marriott in 2016. The breach, however, wasn’t detected until November 2018. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said companies collecting personal data have a legal duty to protect them, and that ICO will not hesitate to take strong action if that doesn’t happen.”

This fine comes after the fine against British Airways for $229 million, the largest fine issued to date.

France passes 3% digital services tax

France is making waves due to its newly passed digital services tax. To generate money from tech giants that can use loopholes to shift profits to avoid paying taxes, they've implemented a tax on revenues instead of profits. This tax has huge implications for American technology companies, so the U.S. government is looking into it.

According to The Verge:

“Under the bill, just passed by the French Senate, tech companies with more than €750 million in global revenue and €25 million in French revenue will be required to pay a 3 percent tax on total annual revenue generated by providing services to French users. The move will affect major players like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and was made as plans for EU-wide tax changes seemed to stall.”

The Office of the United States Trade Representative sees these taxes as unfairly targeting American companies. After completing an investigation, the U.S. government will decide how to react.

But there's more going on in the world than that.

Spiders fly, thanks to Earth’s electric field

Did you know, like Spiderman, real-life spiders can sling webs that propel them through the air? University of Bristol scientists Erica Morley and Daniel Robert believe they’ve found the scientific answer to how spiders basically fly through the air for miles at a time. Their theory is that spiders travel by harnessing the Earth’s electric field.

According to The Atlantic:

“Ballooning spiders operate within this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies, it typically picks up a negative charge. This repels the similar negative charges on the surfaces on which the spiders sit, creating enough force to lift them into the air. And spiders can increase those forces by climbing onto twigs, leaves, or blades of grass. Plants, being earthed, have the same negative charge as the ground that they grow upon, but they protrude into the positively charged air. This creates substantial electric fields between the air around them and the tips of their leaves and branches—and the spiders ballooning from those tips.”

To put it simply, some spiders essentially have superpowers ... even if they aren't radioactive.

And you can't not know this.

Japanese hotel has life-size flight simulator

Japan is known for innovation and for rather interesting themed hotels. Now, the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu has taken things to a higher level. For airline aficionados, they've installed a life-size flight simulator based on a Boeing 737-800 cockpit in one of their rooms.

According to The Verge:

“Kotaku reports that an overnight stay in the room will cost you 25,300 yen (around $233), or else you can book yourself a 90-minute lesson with a flight instructor for 30,000 yen (around $277). The hotel itself is also connected to Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport, as if you needed any more airplane exposure during your visit.”

I know some people dream of flying, but I've never heard of a hotel room containing an actual replica of an airplane's cockpit. Is this cool, or weird?

I don't know why, but I tend to vote for the non-tech related storied more than the daily breach stories. Probably has something to do with being exposed to the tech stories in my daily life. It's always fun to learn something interesting.

Not to be too geeky but I always thought that there has to be a way for Man to fly....defying gravity. like water allow you to defy gravity, or magnets could repel itself. I always thought there was some chemical that could be made that repels the gravitational force. This could be just start to accomplish this task.

anyone else read that 3% tax as a new rate increase for "new services" being passed down to us poor users?

well, it is France. so it would only affect them. But I think this is a situation where any extra charges being passed down might be worth it depending on how good france is on spending their tax revenue.

Global revenue tax is BS if the company is not HQed in that host country. Maybe tax revenue from sales from THAT country, but not global. Now, they want it EU wide? That's also ridiculous.

Fines also don't make any sense, why the hell does the government get paid and not the people affected? The government isn't going to go track down those people, the government isn't going to reimburse the people for it. If anything, the fines should go towards explicit security beef up and paying people for identity protection for 5 years, maybe enforced by the government, but no way in hell should the government receive a free paycheck.

Global revenue tax is BS if the company is not HQed in that host country. Maybe tax revenue from sales from THAT country, but not global. Now, they want it EU wide? That's also ridiculous.

Fines also don't make any sense, why the hell does the government get paid and not the people affected? The government isn't going to go track down those people, the government isn't going to reimburse the people for it. If anything, the fines should go towards explicit security beef up and paying people for identity protection for 5 years, maybe enforced by the government, but no way in hell should the government receive a free paycheck.

This is what was going through my head on both of these. (EU money grab.... that was the other thing.)

The hotel with a flight simulator sounds awesome! I would book one night in that room just to use the flight simulator. I have always wanted to have a flight simulator like that in my home office, but the cost is prohibitively expensive.

Flight simulator hotel room - hey, bro, I heard you like airplanes so I put a flight simulator in a hotel room near the airport so you can to fly a pretend airplane while you wait to fly on a real airplane.

Spider flight science - Neat!!! I wish I had 8 eyes, could climb walls, jump 8 times my own height, shoot web out my backside and use it to fly!

Global revenue tax is BS if the company is not HQed in that host country. Maybe tax revenue from sales from THAT country, but not global. Now, they want it EU wide? That's also ridiculous.

Fines also don't make any sense, why the hell does the government get paid and not the people affected? The government isn't going to go track down those people, the government isn't going to reimburse the people for it. If anything, the fines should go towards explicit security beef up and paying people for identity protection for 5 years, maybe enforced by the government, but no way in hell should the government receive a free paycheck.

I guessing that the company will only be taxed for service revenue generated in France.

If misbehaving companies aren't fined, what's to prevent them from continuing to misbehave?